


Stories of the Second Self: Natural Causes

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [69]
Category: National Guard - Fandom, Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:09:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Jerrod's active duty time in the Ohio National Guard was nonstop, but things were getting worse. With social order in tatters Columbus, Ohio became a battleground between human purists, magic practicing Gaia cultists, and night-roving vampires. Jerrod and his fire team are tasked with infiltrating a structure where unknown insurrectionists are holed up. During the fight, Jerrod will learn the limits of being a werewolf.
Series: Alter Idem [69]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Natural Causes

Heavy fire racked the side of the smoldering building. Jerrod looked back to the source and saw giants of his own unit. The 37th Special Troops Battalion, Ohio National Guard included giants, who carried twenty caliber cannons reengineered as handheld rifles, with 5.56 millimeter M-136 minigun under-mounts. They were laying it on thick to provide Jerrod and other Wild Strikers of the battalion cover to advance.

"Leonard, on point!" Jerrod waved. "Let's go!"

Not long after losing David, the 37th was sent into Columbus, Ohio to recover an all-human unit. That was nearly two months ago. City blocks changed hands by the day, and Jerrod still didn't know who they were fighting. All he could tell is that some of them learned to weaponize spells, and were hurling blue fireballs from the building his fire team was running toward.

Leonard slammed his back against the wall of the shattered building next to a fire door that seemed warmed and discolored by extreme heat. He took a knee and propped up his rifle to survey the scene he just ran across, and then called into his headset worn under his helmet. "Tanner, you're next!"

"Go," Jerrod slapped Tanner's shoulder, and then aimed his rifle up at the upper floor windows.

Jerrod saw an arm come into view on the fifth floor and reset his aim. He could tell whoever it was leaned against the wall before turning around to throw something. Figuring they were going for Tanner, who wasn't even halfway to the door, Jerrod opened fire.

Except, the attacker didn't hurl their fireball at Tanner, instead the spell was cast straight down.

"Leonard, incoming!" Jerrod yelled.

Leonard looked up instead, and tried hustling too late on seeing what came his way. The blue fiery sphere shot down with the speed of a rocket, and it exploded in waves of Indigo blue flames.

The attacker, a Fae with small antlers, was racked by shots from Jerrod and others further back. They tumbled out the window, while Jerrod dashed over to Leonard, who writhed and screamed. Wildly his slapped at the angry flames on his pack and upper side of one leg.

Jerrod dropped down next to Leonard about the time Tanner recovered from his dive to avoid the blast, and the two forced Leonard onto his back to rub out the fire. Fumbling at Leonard's pack, Jerrod got it off and threw it aside. After, he pulled out the drinking hose from Leonard's camel pack, and started forcing water out onto Leonard's leg.

The flames were hardly more than what came from a lighter, but Jerrod felt the heat on his face, and they'd already burned through Leonard's ADU trousers, blistering skin underneath. The blue fire resisted water with evil hissing, like little demons being excommunicated.

"God, what the fuck?" Tanner cursed, and scooped up dirt to smother the flames.

"Corporal, what's going on?" It was Captain Gonzales coming over Jerrod's radio.

"Cap, they got some kind of weird-assed fire spell!" Jerrod's voice shook. "Shit just won't go out. It's like napalm or something."

"Fuckin' put it out," Leonard shrieked, "It's burnin'! Oh, momma!"

Jerrod, both irate an Leonard's thrashing, and alarmed at what the fire was doing to his skin, let a lupine growl through his snarling lips while he ripped the camel pack off Leonard. Water splashed when the pack tore, but Jerrod wrapped the water pack around Leonard's leg. The hissing grew for a few seconds, and Jerrod swore he heard words from the angry flames.

"Medic's comin'," Tanner said, having turned to see someone running toward them.

However, Jerrod's plan to deprive the supernatural fire oxygen worked, and the hissing faded like a final gasp of life. The medic shoved Jerrod out of the way, and took over. "I got it from here, Jerrod."

"C'mon team," Captain Gonzales said over the radio. "Root those sons 'a bitches out of that structure."

"Tanner, on me," Jerrod called, and pulled on Tanner's webgear.

Both picked up their rifles, and Jerrod ripped the door open with a squeal of stubborn metal. Going in first, Jerrod swept the sides around the door with his eyes and muzzle of his rifle together. Never did his focus go where his rifle didn't follow.

"Room's clear," Jerrod advised Tanner. "Secure that point by the other door."

"Got it," Tanner replied, and moved ahead.

Tanner stood to one side of the door by the handle, and Jerrod followed up, both aiming their weapons as if someone might burst in on them that second. Another fire team entered the room after, and one of them approached the door to open it.

"Hallway, left side clear," Tanner declared after pointing his rifle through the narrow opening.

The other Guardsman opened the door the rest of the way for one of his team to swept down the other way. "Right side clear."

"Cap, we're inside and starting our sweep," Jerrod announced over the radio.

"Copy," Gonzales answered, "I'm sending in two more teams. Quick-search that level before you proceed up to the second floor."

"Yessir," Jerrod affirmed, and took his hand off his rifle's pistol grip to gesture with two fingers.

The lead of the second fire team signaled his guys to follow and entered the hallway. Jerrod and Tanner followed, to secure doors while the second team swept each room they came across. Four doors later, Jerrod heard rifle fire and saw muzzle flash.

"Room clear!" the second team leader seemed as much angered as startled.

Chancing a look, Jerrod saw human wearing thin white robes with red spots spreading where he'd been shot multiple times. Not an artificial fiber was on his clothing, and he wore sandals that might've been made of hemp.

The dead man also had no guns on him, just a couple pouches tied around his waste and something that was a combination of ring and bracelet around his right hand leading up to his ring finger. It appeared to be made of green leafy vines.

"'The hell?" Tanner gasped.

"Fuckin' pointed it at us like he was gonna shoot," another of the second team members described.

"Cap," Jerrod called up, "One aggressor down. Plain robes, sandals, and he had some charm or some shit on his right hand. Ganns said it was held like a weapon."

"Solid copy," Gonzales replied, "Resume your sweep.

"Green Peace meets Green Machine," Ganns, who led the second team, scoffed.

Coming back out the room, Jerrod caught a flash of what looked like a green whip. It left a stinging lash just over his eye, causing him to jump back into the room. "Fuck!"

Tanner ran up to the doorway, cracking his shoulder against the frame, and shoved his rifle around without looking and fired off a couple of three-round bursts. "All-natural this, you piece of shit!"

Ganns leaned against the other side of the door, but aimed his rifle the same way and discharged a round. "He's gone."

Tanner let loose one more set of three rounds. "Suck it, bitches!"

"I said he's gone, Tanner," Ganns shouted, "Conserve your ammo!"

"Tanner," Jerrod added just as loudly, when Tanner fired a final trio of shots. "Switch mags."

Tanner pulled his rifle back, and removed his current magazine for a fresh one from his webgear, and put the first one in the same pouch. The idea wasn't just to have Tanner bearing a mag topped off with a full thirty rounds, but to get him to take a breath and a moment of pause.

"Yeah," Tanner said, and nodded looking at no one, "Sorry guys."

"Alright, my turn," Jerrod said, as he stepped out in the hall to cover the room exit for the others. "Hallway clear."

Once they went through the first floor Jerrod lead the other five to a stairwell, where Ganns took point heading up. Four floors up, and Jerrod bore witness to a few more bodies or parts of bodies. The twenty cals that the giants used did a real number on these guys, many of them laying in parts with red sprays covering floor to ceiling where they stood when hit.

One of Ganns' guys led into the next room, where the Fae who cooked Leonard had been. Inside lay a dead angel wearing identical robes. The winged girl's arm was blown off, but her wing seemed only broken with the deformed twenty caliber slug smashed into the light-bending feathers that it failed to penetrate.

"For all the cool shit about being a werewolf, I'd give it all up for bullet resistant wings," Tanner noted.

"Yeah, but we get to grow our arms back," Jerrod reminded, and then noticed where the arm lay and walked over to it.

"What're you doing?" Ganns asked Jerrod.

Unwilling to touch the mangled arm itself, Jerrod pinched a hold on the wrist vine with two fingers, and tugged at it while he stepped on the shattered remains of the wrist. "If this is a weapon I wanna secure it."

He finally got it off, and became nauseous when a couple fingers slowly flexed toward the thumb. Having looked at it longer than he'd wished, Jerrod turned his head deliberately away, as he headed over to the window.

"Captain," Ganns warned Gonzales and others still outside. "We're at the fifth floor window where the shooters were. Tell everyone to hold fire. We're discarding what we think is one of their weapons."

"We read you," Gonzales answered back, "Okay, you're clear."

Jerrod pressed his back against the wall, and tossed the bloodied vine charm out the window. "You see it, Cap?"

"Yeah, I'm sending someone to retrieve it," Gonzales replied, "Is that floor clear?"

"Yes sir," Ganns answered, turning to studied the arm. "I think it's like a whip or choke wire. Not sure what they used to launch the fireballs at us."

"Alright, you guys come out of there," Captain Gonzales ordered, "And I'll have the EOD guys do a slow search. If these Gaia cultists got any other surprises I want to find out before we hit the Scioto Audubon Metro Park a couple blocks over."

"Copy that, Captain," Ganns replied, "Extracting now."

Tanner shook his head dramatically with a wide grin, "An' that's the loudest death from natural causes. Whew!"

"Cap, how's Leonard?" Jerrod asked, leaving the room behind.

"Medic says, if he were human he'd lose his leg," Gonzales revealed, "As it is, he's hurtin' real bad, but he'll be back on his feet after a week or so."


End file.
